Skills Required to Succeed in PPC in 2022
The Internet is the new resort for the global population today when it comes to looking for information related to various products and services. There are more than 4.5 billion active internet users worldwide today as per Statista, which also makes the internet a perfect platform for advertising a brand. The internet space is holding huge potential for the digital marketing industry, which is equally leveraging this new age technology.
Out of various digital marketing techniques which marketers use to gain revenue, PPC (Pay Per Click) has proved to be the most budget-friendly option to buy visits. Professionals having a PPC Certification are able to get a huge audience for their organisation, that too at an excellent ROI. According to Google, businesses that run PPC are getting a return of $2 for every $1 investment, with 65% of the PPC clicks getting converted into potential business.
These great results have created a huge rise in PPC aided advertising, also increasing the demand for such specialists. Students and marketers are now looking to expand their spectrum of skills and take up online courses to learn digital marketing skills that also include PPC. Here in this article, we will focus on PPC and the skills required to succeed as a PPC specialist.
What is PPC?
- PPC, or Pay Per Click, is primarily an online advertising model where the advertiser pays the publisher every time their advertisement link gets a click.
- It’s a process of buying visits to the site, rather than earning those visits organically. It is ideal for small businesses as it ensures that the money spent on the ads is not wasted.
- This model is prominently offered by search engines such as Google (Google Ads) and social networking sites like Facebook (Facebook Ads) and Twitter (Twitter Ads).
- Individuals who specialise in PPC are known as PPC specialists, and focus on designing, building, and executing digital advertising campaigns to meet the organisation’s goals and objectives.
To succeed in PPC or to build a career as a PPC specialist one should have certain skills, that have been explained below.
Skills in Designing and Building PPC Campaign
Designing and building campaigns for internal and external clients are one of the core responsibilities in PPC. One should possess the following skill sets to properly execute these campaigns.
Keyword Research and Bidding Skills
- In PPC, everything starts with a keyword. People use search engines like Google to find a product, service, or questions to their answer. They type a word or a phrase in the search box and Google in return provides a list of searches both paid and organic.
- If an organisation wants its ads to show up on the page, then bidding on the right keyword is essential, as it is the key to success.
- One should know how to use the keyword research tools and analytical data to find out a set of keywords that are highly relevant to your business.
Audience Targeting Skills
- Audience targeting through demographic data is another skill that is useful for success in PPC. It’s one of the great ways to boost the performance of the PPC campaign.
- It is a method of segregating the consumers into different segments like age, average income, location, gender, interests, hobbies, etc., and trying to understand the audience and their behaviour.
- This skill will help to formulate a PPC campaign and align strategies based on the audience’s lifestyle and preferences.
Copywriting Skills
- Ad copywriting is the skill of using written words to sell goods and services. It includes elements ranging from catchy headlines to compelling call-to-actions (CTAs), that encourage viewers to click through.
- It accomplishes the visual portion of an advertising campaign and is based on the idea of marketing a particular product to a specific group of consumer audience.
- The written advertisement copy can be found in the form of posters, television commercials, radio advertisements, websites, and brochures.
Creative Ad Designing Skills
- Designing both text-based and image-based ads is another skill that ensures that the ads are visually appealing and attention-grabbing for the audience.
- Ad designing is all about creative ideas and a combination of lines, colours, images, typefaces, and other graphical elements to create an eye-catching ad.
Web Development Skills
- One should have graphic designing and web development skills to be able to design the landing pages. They should also master landing page creation software tools like Unbounce.
- The landing pages should be aesthetically pleasing and high-converting to support the ad campaign.
- The landing pages should have the potential to convert the audience into their buyers.
Skills in Monitoring Campaign Performance
- Once the ad campaign has been created and uploaded, then its performance needs to be monitored.
- The PPC specialist should be able to navigate paid advertising networks, platforms, and software to effectively monitor their campaign, manage budget, and ensure profitability.
- They should be familiar with the leading paid advertising networks (like Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising), social networks (like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter), and community advertising (like Quora, Reddit).
Skills in Analysing and Optimising PPC Campaign
- PPC specialists should be able to analyse the results of online advertising campaigns and figure out the points that are lagging behind in a campaign.
- They should have skills in optimising campaigns for better conversion, like adjusting keyword targeting or bid setting, changing value proposition, changing the parameter of a target audience, adding negative keywords, modifying the campaign design, etc.
Teamwork/Collaborative Skills
- PPC is a part of digital marketing, so the PPC experts have to deal with other marketing professionals to deliver a campaign across multiple channels.
- So, the PPC specialists should have collaborative skills and should be able to work in a team.
- They may have to work in a team with social media specialists, SEO specialists, graphic designers, account managers, etc.
The above-mentioned skills are the basic ones that will be required in the career of a PPC specialist. PPC specialist is a valuable marketing role whose activities will have a huge impact on the businesses. The demand for such professionals is only going to increase in the future, so learning it would be highly beneficial for markets.
One can take up online courses in PPC, which will provide a detailed knowledge of PPC strategies, helpful tools, and skills required to implement PPC. There are various platforms that offer PPC courses like Udemy, Simplilearn, Semrush, LinkedIn, Skillshare, etc. If you are interested in PPC, then don’t wait and just enrol in one of the courses.